Are The Mirabal Sisters In Julia Alvarez's In The Time Of The Butterflies

In her novel In the Time of the Butterflies, Julia Alvarez tells a tale that shows how life can be both beautiful and horrible at the same time. The book is set in the Dominican Republic, where an oppressive dictator named Trujillo is in power. Living under his iron fist is the Mirabal family, a relatively normal family with four beautiful daughters. While the girls are protected relatively well from Trujillo’s political patriarchy, a few of them are introduced to patriarchy via minor oppression through the church. However, as they grow older, the Mirabal sisters cannot be so easily protected, and they see how unbearably oppressive Trujillo really is, and eventually each one decides to help fuel a rebellion against him. However, the Mirabal sisters are not just being oppressed by Trujillo; they are also being oppressed by the men in their families.
Dedé, one of the sisters, constantly has her voice and opinions suppressed; she is talking to her sisters when they ask her to make a decision and act on it; “What could Dedé say? She had to talk to Jaimito first. Patria had given her a disappointed look... ‘But can’t you decide on your own, then tell him?’ Dedé stared at her sister, disbelieving” (Alvarez 176). Patria asks, in this quote, if Dedé can decide for herself. Had Dedé felt free to make her own decisions, she would have responded accordingly by giving them a yes or a no as her final answer. Instead, she cannot believe that her sister would ask her to make a decision without Jaimito, and tells them that she must talk to him first. However later, when she ends up talking to him, “Dedé had talked to Jaimito...he was furious with her even considering such a request” (Alvarez 176), he simply forces her to go along with his decision. This exemplifies how Dedé’s ability to make her own decisions has been limited due to her relationship with